Scientists may have discovered a way to deal with internet worms.

The innovation is able to detect when the malware type has infected a computer network and shuts the system down so that computers can be held in quarantine and repaired.

Ness Shroff, scholar in networking and communications at Ohio State University, and his team feel they have found a means of combating the most dangerous form of computer virus.

"These worms spread very quickly. They flood the net with junk traffic, and at their most benign, they overload computer networks and shut them down," said Mr Schoff.

He went on to say that he and his team were able to develop software to monitor the number of internet address scans that machines on a network send out.

When a machine sends out too many scans, it is a sign there is a virus on the system and the computer should be shut down so it can be repaired, claimed the team.

This week, IT security firm BitDefender put together a table of the most effective malware forms and found that a pop-up serving trojan designed to sidestep blocker codes topped the list.




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